Gabi Kinney, Community Engagement Project Manager

From the Green Mountains in Vermont to the coastal streets of Wilmington, North Carolina and now this rich historical peninsula of Virginia, I have lived and grown among diverse communities of people surrounded by beautiful natural places. My childhood was spent lost in the woods of my backyard with a dazed sense of curiosity, later transformed into a passion for understanding the benefits of nature in human wellbeing. I spent much of my college years in the field working with benthic wetland critters and valuable coastal ecosystems, later building upon conservation outreach and advocacy in rural Virginia communities through an AmeriCorps position with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In hoping to build a resilient future for both the natural spaces that inspired me as a child and the network of communities that rely on them, I feel at home with the Wetlands Watch team and look forward to advancing outreach on climate and flood preparedness in vulnerable areas of the state.

In 2020, I graduated from UNC Wilmington with a degree in Marine Biology and completed a Master’s degree in Global Sustainability and Natural Resources at Virginia Tech in 2023. I plan to apply my advanced studies in sustainable development to my work at Wetlands Watch by encouraging and building awareness for nature-based solutions in localities most impacted by the uncertainties of climate change.